San Francisco

Two weeks ago, I went to San Fran to attend the Apple World Wide Developer's Conference (WWDC). Since tickets were expensive, I was the only representative to attend from Illumina. Lucky for me, Badge came up to keep me company for the second half of the week, plus Maya (my roomie from MIT) lives there currently so I was not lonely. Much walking, eating, standing in line, mingling with nerds was had. Here's the recap:

Sunday

I flew into San Fran in the late afternoon and took a cab to the hotel. After checking into the Grand Hyatt (in Union Square and a few blocks from convention center), I walked to the westfield mall food court and (at the advice of Maya) ate spring roll, chicken wings and black tea boba at Out The Door. Quite tasty. Afterwards, I was quite pleased to see a Beard Papa at the mall (I used to go all the time in NY for cream puffs). Of course, I could not resist so I picked up a chocolate cream puff. Still as good as I remembered.



Pleasantly full, I walked to the convention center to pick up my registration packet. While there, I noted there were already people camping out front for the keynote speak on Monday (not a good sign). For dinner, Maya and her fiance Brian picked me up at the hotel and drove me their neighborhood (Mission) for dosas at a place named...well Dosa. We started the meal with lentil salad, chaat and some sort of lamb pocket. The three of us then split masala dosa, pepper chicken, and veggie curry. I was absolutely STUFFED after this meal. Thank goodness they dropped me off because there's no way I could have made it home via public transit.


Monday

I woke up and ate a breakfast of waffles at the hotel. Apparently, because I'm a AAA member, breakfast was free! Whoohoo!


I arrived at the convention center an hour and a half before the keynote and was dismayed to see that the line wrapped all the way around the building. Grimly I stood in line though by the time I finally entered the building, the main room for the keynote was full and we were put in an overflow room with projectors. The rest of the day was a blur of sitting in seminars and standing in line. The sheer number of people at this event was staggering. There were over 5,200 attendees of which about 2% appeared to be women. I kid you not. Throw on top of that my big belly, and you could say I got a good number of stares. I did sneak out for lunch at the food court again, accompanied by another Beard Papa cream puff.



For dinner, I met up with Maya and Brian again for ramen at Katana-Ya. Not the best ramen I've ever had but it hit the spot.


For dessert, we wandered to Cafe de la Presse. I ate a delicious apple tartin, while Maya and Brian split profiteroles.



Tuesday

The day was spent in more sessions. I got locked out of the first one because apparently the room was too full. That's when I wised up to the fact that I needed to stand in line for 15 min before each session to even get in. Yippee. For lunch, I went to a nearby sandwich shop called Working Girl's Cafe and got a blackened red snapper sandwich. It was a beautiful day, so I ate my sandwich at a nearby park. Very enjoyable. Yes, I stopped by Beard Papa and got another cream puff. I was determined to eat a puff a day for no reason other than they are delicious and I'm pregnant. Baby demands puff!



That night, Badge arrived yay! We were feeling adventurous so we hopped on a bus and took it all the way to Cow's Hollow (further north and west of us) to try out a restaurant called A16. Badge was particularly interested in this place because it had authentic Neapolitan style pizza. To start, we had braised artichokes with burrata cheese and a salami plate. For entree, we split a Margherita pizza and another one with olives, sardines, and arugula. The food was good but in my opinion, not stellar. The pizza sauce in particular I felt was rather salty. That's a dealbreaker for me. At least, the wine was good and the ambience was nice. Afterwards, we went to a theater across the street to watch X Men: First Class. Surprisingly, this movie turned out to be great. The action was good, the plot was good, the acting was mostly good. Big plus in my book.


Wednesday

It was another day of sessions. I tried to go to some labs but there were lots of people and I didn't feel like waiting in even more lines to talk to an engineer. I did chat with someone about using Instruments but she wasn't particularly useful. For lunch, I met up with Badge at another sandwich shop called the Sentinel. He got a turkey meatball sandwich, while I got a shrimp salad sandwich. We went back to the park to enjoy our food (and puffs which we also picked up).



At that point, we parted ways as I went back to the conference and Badge went back to the hotel to work. That night, Badge and I went to So Restaurant, a korean/chinese restaurant in the SOMA neighborhood. We started with chicken wings (amazing) and fried veggie potstickers (ok). Badge got mapo tofu (tasty) and I got the So black bean noodles (beyond amazing). These noodles were sooooo good. For me, the flavor profile was absolutely perfect. This was my favorite dish of the trip and that's saying a lot. I will definitely be back to get these noodles at the next opportunity. Afterwards, we went to see Bridesmaid at the theater. Pretty silly and funny. Good ending to the night.


Thursday

It was another day at the convention. I have to mention that by Tuesday my feet were horribly swollen and I was pretty much limping around everywhere like a sad whale. I tried to put up my feet when I could but the opportunity just didn't present itself often. For lunch, Badge and I went back to Out The Door for green papaya salad and curry (and more boba). I think today we forgot to get cream puffs (the only day of the trip I must add). After an afternoon of conferencing, I met up with Badge at Perry's a restaurant on the Embarcadero to watch the NBA finals game. Badge had been out visiting one of his friends who lives in the city. We were joined at Perry's by our friend Annabel and her coworker. There was lots of eating (fries, soup, salad, hamburger, mac n cheese). Sadly the Heat lost but the evening was still fun.

Friday

On the last day of the conference, I was able to make an appt to do a UI design review with two Apple engineers. This was probably the most directly valuable part of the conference. They were able to provide lots of helpful feedback. For a late lunch, we met up with Maya at Brickhouse Cafe for coffee and sandwiches. I had a pastrami sandwich that was yummy but not nearly as good as the one I had in Portland, which just made me sad that I was not eating the one in Portland. After the conference was over, Badge and I went to watch Super 8 which was not as good as we expected. I couldn't point to anything in particular that was wrong with the film. Maybe just that it lacked that magically quality that makes a good film. Too predictable perhaps? Or even a little cheesy at the end? Either way we were disappointed. Before dinner, Maya meet us at the hotel and picked up our luggage (we checked out that morning) and drove us her to her apt in Mission Dolores.

For dinner, we walked to a nearby Mexican restaurant which was DELICIOUS. We started with ceviche. Maya got quesadillas, Badge got some sort of torta with meat on it, and I got filet mignon tacos. Everything was delicious (Badge's dish was the best). We ended with dulche de leche cake which was absolutely to die for. I would totally eat here every week if we lived nearby.


After dinner, we went home and changed and set forth again to meet Becca at a bar/club in union square for her 30th birthday bash. It was great to catch up (been too long since we last saw each other). We got home around 2am and passed out.

Saturday

We woke up and went to chinatown for dim sum. It was Badge's first dim sum experience and he thoroughly enjoyed it. Who wouldn't like dumplings and buns?! I forgot to take pics of the food but I did take pics of the foodies.



In the afternoon, Maya and Brian gave us the driving tour of San Fran. Certain neighborhoods definitely seem cuter and more fun to live in than others. Before our flight, we got bagels and salad from a Dolores Park cafe and stopped by Bi Rite Creamery for ice cream. It was the perfect ending to a a great food packed trip (here's me in all my pregnant ice cream eating glory).


From there, Badge and I picked up our luggage and took the BART to the airport. Sadly, our flight turned out to be delayed by two hours but luckily we were able to make it into SD. Till next time San Francisco!

Many more pics to be found here